A second sub...
Not to get too excited, but the House Armed Services Committee's Seapower & Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee this afternoon completed its work on a Defense Authorization Bill that includes an additional $588 million for the advanced procurement - the first step in increasing funding for construction of a second submarine.
I say it's not to get too excited about because it's still a long way to go before we get to the point where a second sub is real. The House Armed Services Committee will mark up the full authorization bill next week.
And then again, this is just the "authorization" not the actually "appropriation." We went down this route a year ago when the Defense Authorization Bill was approved - authorizing the construction of two subs a year - but the money to actually do it never materialized.
What is different this year is the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee, Rep. John Murtha, has pledged his support to include the funding for the second sub when his group gets around to acting on the Defense Appropriations Bill. But that isn't happening yet...and that won't be happening until much later in the year.
But speaking of subs...the USS Hawaii, the third in the Virginia-class submarine construction schedule, will be commissioned on Saturday. Tomorrow, the Navy is hosting a media open house for the Hawaii....so I'll be spending my morning at the sub base.
I'll be spending the afternoon at Conn College where the War in Iraq will take center stage. Ned Lamont, the 2006 Democratic nominee for US Senator, and AFL-CIO President John Olson are the featured speakers discussing what should happen next.
I say it's not to get too excited about because it's still a long way to go before we get to the point where a second sub is real. The House Armed Services Committee will mark up the full authorization bill next week.
And then again, this is just the "authorization" not the actually "appropriation." We went down this route a year ago when the Defense Authorization Bill was approved - authorizing the construction of two subs a year - but the money to actually do it never materialized.
What is different this year is the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee's Defense Subcommittee, Rep. John Murtha, has pledged his support to include the funding for the second sub when his group gets around to acting on the Defense Appropriations Bill. But that isn't happening yet...and that won't be happening until much later in the year.
But speaking of subs...the USS Hawaii, the third in the Virginia-class submarine construction schedule, will be commissioned on Saturday. Tomorrow, the Navy is hosting a media open house for the Hawaii....so I'll be spending my morning at the sub base.
I'll be spending the afternoon at Conn College where the War in Iraq will take center stage. Ned Lamont, the 2006 Democratic nominee for US Senator, and AFL-CIO President John Olson are the featured speakers discussing what should happen next.
posted by Ray Hackett at 2:28 PM
2 Comments:
We can all thank Rob Simmons for that.
Absolutely. I don't think Rob got enough credit for how much he kept this issue on the front burner in Washington - and to his credit, Courtney has picked the ball up and pushing it further.
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